Livelihoods Improvement for Women and Youth (LIWAY)

The Livelihoods Improvement for Women and Youth (LIWAY) programme, funded by Sida, aims to create employment opportunities for women and young people in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Over a nine year period (2017 - 2026), SNV, together with Save the Children, Mercy Corps and Technoserve, aims to improve the lives of at least 257,000 people, with a special focus on young people and women, by increasing their income and economic opportunities.

Building on the experiences and competencies of the participating organisations, the programme aims to develop selected local markets, empower young people and women, and create private sector engagement. We work in four interrelated market systems, which were selected based on their relevance to poor women and youth, the opportunity for positive impact, and the feasibility for intervention. These are the labour, micro and small enterprise, medium and large enterprise, and skills systems.

We diagnose the root causes of market failure that disadvantage or exclude poor women and youth within these systems and identify private companies and public institutions with the incentive and ability to deliver change. Working in partnership with these public and private actors, we catalyse innovative market-based solutions that have the potential to impact large numbers of poor women and youth. Our aim is to make market systems work better for our target group, while demonstrating benefit to public and private actors that play a role in the systems to ensure local ownership and sustainability and continued improvement beyond the programme period.

More information on LIWAY’s approach, programme results to date, and related case stories are available at www.liway.org.